Despite its defects, Washington maintained an attitude of respect and deference toward Congress which it did not always deserve. He was reluctant to appeal directly to the states for help for fear of undermining Congressional influence in coordinating the war effort. Only after Congress had shown its impotence in feeding and clothing his army did Washington finally resort to a personal appeal to the states.
Congressional impotence was partly due to its tendency to solve problems by committee since there was no chief executive. Most of these committees – over 3,000 would be appointed before the war ended – were three-man affairs. The people selected to serve on a committee usually had no expertise in the problem the committee was created to solve. Congress even created a Committee on Committees to keep track of what everyone was doing.
The proliferation of Congressional committees inevitably began to meddle in the conduct of the war. Washington complained that he was getting inquiries from so many committees that it interfered with his efforts in managing the war. Congress, which had repeatedly demonstrated its ineptitude to provision the war, now began to micromanage its tactical execution without the training or experience to do so. This included second-guessing Washington's chain of command appointments by the several members of Congress who were not Washington enthusiasts. Therefore, one of Washington's challenges during the winter at that “dreary kind of place,” which is what he called Valley Forge, was to rid himself of Congressional micromanagement and neutralize those members who were trying to undermine his leadership. He would do so with hard-nosed politics.
There was never a time during the war that Washington lost the trust, if not the awe, of the soldiers and officers he led. He also had the confidence of the general public, which was apolitical. But a general who does not win victories opens himself to attack from those who would benefit from his demise.
Such was the affair known in history as the “Conway cabal.”
While Washington was being out-maneuvered in the Philadelphia campaign, first losing battles at Brandywine Creek and Germantown and then losing Philadelphia, the capital city, American General Horatio Gates had engaged the British in a battle near Saratoga, New York. The British troops under General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne were surrounded by Gates’ generals, forcing Burgoyne to surrender his entire 5,000 man army. It was a breathtaking victory for the Americans. When Benjamin Franklin, the American ambassador to France, glumly received word that Philadelphia had fallen to the British, the messenger iced the news with word of Burgoyne’s surrender, allowing a jubilant Franklin to now argue compellingly that France should enter the war on the American side.
Although General Gates was the senior commander at Saratoga, the battle turned on the aggressive fighting of General Benedict Arnold, who was wounded in a leg and removed from the field, and Gates’ other subordinate generals. But Gates, a vainglorious self-promoter, claimed sole credit for the victory and his star consequently rose among members of Congress. In a remarkable breach of protocol, Gates sent word of “his” victory and the surrender of Burgoyne’s army directly to the Continental Congress rather than to his superior officer and the army commander-in-chief, George Washington.
Gates had always believed that he, not Washington, should have been appointed commander-in-chief. Yet Washington’s daring attack on Christmas Day in 1776 which captured the Hessian garrison at Trenton, followed by his victory at Princeton, led Congress to believe the right man had been chosen for senior commander. Gates, a cautious fighter, had removed himself from participating in the Trenton attack by feigning illness. He thought Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River at night in rafts to attack Trenton at dawn was too aggressive. Fighting as a detached unit under Washington’s command, Gates was reluctant to attack the British directly at Saratoga giving Arnold cause to refer to him derisively as “Granny” Gates.
With victory over Burgoyne, Gates began to exploit his heroic status to improve his standing in the command structure of the Continental army. He urged his friends in Congress to reconsider him as a replacement for Washington. They succeeded in getting him named President of the Board of War, which Congress had recently announced would change its mission from a legislative committee to an executive agency. When it was made known that Gates would retain his field command as well as serve as President of the War Board, a civilian position, it put Gates in the astonishing position of being a subordinate military officer under the command of Washington and a civilian with authority over Washington’s army.
As Washington fumed, most of a month passed before Gates finally mentioned in passing the victory over Burgoyne in a letter to Washington devoted to another matter. Yet the street-smart Washington did not over-play his hand. He understood that the Gates victory superimposed on his recent losses had turned Congress into a bunch of armchair generals who had become disenchanted with his leadership. Consequently he harnessed his ego and waited for advantage.
Things came to a head when Washington got wind that Congress intended to promote one of his subordinate generals to major general over the heads of more senior brigadiers. Brigadier Thomas Conway was a self-aggrandizing opportunist who had left his birthplace in Ireland to begin a career in the French army. A stint in the Continental army was for Conway little more than a step on his career ladder, enhancing his military standing in France. Washington was a good judge of character and considered Conway a blowhard. He also knew that Conway had criticized his handling of the battle at Brandywine.
Incensed with the plan to promote Conway, Washington wrote a member of Congress that, “General Conway’s merit as an officer and his importance in this army exists more in his own imagination than in reality. For it is a maxim with him to leave no service of his untold.” Washington seldom spoke so pointedly and was loathe to interfere with civilian control of the military. But by confronting the Conway promotion with Congress, he began demonstrating that he was as adroit at infighting as his critics and as sure-footed in defending his authority as his opponents were in undermining it.
When Gates sent word to Congress of his Saratoga victory, he entrusted it to be carried to York by his young aide James Wilkinson. En route Wilkinson paused at a tavern for rest and refreshment where he happened upon the aide to Major General William Alexander (Lord Sterling), one of Washington’s most trusted commanders. Presumably drunk, Wilkinson revealed to Sterling’s aide a letter from Conway to Gates that was highly critical of Washington. "Heaven has determined to save your country or a weak general and bad counselors would have ruined it," wrote Conway to Gates. The aide reported the comment to Lord Sterling who passed it along to Washington. Washington was stunned to learn that two of his subordinate generals were besmirching his reputation.
With typical Washington shrewdness, he sent a note to Conway containing the offending line without comment, giving Conway the rope to hang himself. Conway alleged that the line had been taken out of the letter’s context. Confronting Gates with the same demeaning comment, Gates said he was “inexpressibly distressed” by it and alarmed that his personal papers had been purloined by some unknown thief.
When Conway was promoted to Major General as well as Inspector General for the War Board, whose president was by then General Gates, an internecine war between Washington and his two subordinates erupted. Uninvited, Conway showed up at Valley Forge one day in his new capacity as Inspector General and Washington received him with chilly civility, telling him that he was not allowed to inspect anything until Congress sent explicit instructions detailing Conway’s authority.
In the end, Washington won out over his scheming rivals because unlike them he had character and control over his temperament. He was consistently polite to Gates thereafter, allowing his defects as a commander to undo him. Conway inundated Congress with so many abusive letters and threats to resign that Congress finally accepted his offer in April 1778. But Conway’s continued criticism of Washington earned him a duel with one of Washington’s most loyal admirers, who shot him in the mouth. Thinking he was dying, Conway penned an apology to Washington before sailing to France.
Washington showed his skill as an infighter in putting down the so-called Conway cabal. That he was able to do it while dealing with the more pressing demands of feeding and sheltering his men in their Valley Forge encampment shows that Washington was a more worthy leader than his enemies, who thought only of advancing their own interests. A lesser man, besieged by so many critics, ignored by Congress, and confronted with suffering soldiers he was unable to help might have packed it in and gone home. Washington longed for Mount Vernon and Martha, and yet not once during the war did he leave his troops to return home for a visit. Martha had always come to him.
She did not arrive until February. The death of her sister and the birth of her second grandchild delayed her. And when she did arrive Martha was taken aback by the state of the army, her husband’s somber mood and jangled nerves, and the cramped quarters in which he lived with his aides. But she was made of stern stuff, and notwithstanding her status as the general’s lady, Martha pitched in and helped the other women who along with their children had accompanied their men into the field. There were about 500 women at Valley Forge – some of them the wives of other generals. Lord Sterling’s wife had brought their daughter, whom Washington called Lady Kitty.
These camp following families lifted the spirits of the soldiers, even those who had no family on the field. Their presence kept many from deserting. The women and children did laundry, mended clothes, helped with the cooking, and provided emotional support. Women also caught the diseases that were rampant among the men. Some were killed on the battlefields while scavenging for food and supplies among the wounded and dead soldiers.
When there was food, the women were given half rations. When there was pay they were given half. Children were given quarter rations and quarter pay for work well done.
Martha had brought with her as much food and supplies as she could pack in her carriage. She also brought wool and cloth, sewing needles and thread, and home medicines. When her carriage became stuck in the snow near Brandywine Creek, she hired a sleigh to take her, her servants, and the supplies the rest of the way to Valley Forge.
Her arrival was a great morale boost to the camp including Washington’s, whose steely reserve was no defense in Martha’s company. She organized the women and joined them in knitting, sewing, and caring for the sick. She also organized occasions for receptions and entertainment. February 22 was Washington’s 46th birthday so he allowed himself to enjoy a drum and fife recital and he permitted the play Cato to be performed for him by his junior officers.
But with the advent of spring, the citizen soldiers Washington had led to Valley Forge had to be ready to fight the mightiest army in the world. Once more a providential solution appeared in the form of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Ludholf Gerhard Augustin von Steuben, once a member of the elite General Staff of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, now unemployed. He offered his services to the patriot cause for the recompense of his expenses.
Steuben arrived at Valley Forge in February. His baron title was bogus. The previous summer, Benjamin Franklin had sent him to America and embellished his credentials to make him more acceptable to Washington. Now the unemployed captain would be elevated to Lieutenant General and charged with turning Washington’s rag tag army into a fighting force.
As the rotund bemedaled newcomer stalked the camp, trailed by his greyhound, Washington’s army was aghast at the trappings of his horse and his holstered pistols. Steuben was equally aghast at the filth he saw all about. The carcasses of dead horses lay near where men were preparing their food, men urinated in the streams from which they drew water, the sick and the healthy intermingled. Steuben immediately instituted sanitation reforms. Latrines were dug 300 feet from huts and were filled after three days of use. The sick were quarantined and the dead immediately buried. Rotting animals were dragged outside of camp and burned.
Steuben next got to work on uniforms that distinguished officers from enlisted men and then attacked the army’s fitness. While British troops moved on the battlefield in brisk marching steps, the Continental army had no methods for uniform movement. Steuben became a tough drillmaster. He spoke almost no English and commands often had to be translated from French. But he had a rich vocabulary of profanities which he liberally used when teaching close order drill to farmers who had never moved in unison. The bayonet had not been used by the Continental soldiers because they did not trust it for any other use but to cook meat over a fire. Steuben taught them to use it as a weapon of terror. He taught them to fire their muskets, load, and fire them again faster. Everything was done with precision. All day he drilled them on the parade field, teaching them to march and wheel, to switch from line to column and back to line again. He cursed and threatened until he got the results he wanted. From dawn to dusk his voice boomed in camp over the sounds of marching feet.
Soldiers and officers were shocked that General Steuben worked directly with the men, breaking the tradition that a general officer worked through intermediary officers and sergeants. In order to leverage his efforts, Steuben trained the first 100 men personally. When he was satisfied with their discipline, they were sent with evangelistic zeal throughout the army teaching others. When basic training in arms was mastered the training regimen became more advanced.
Steuben’s arrival came at an advantageous time. Washington would lose two to three hundred officers in the spring through resignation. Death from disease had reduced the number of fit troops. New recruits were arriving who had to be quickly integrated into military life. Steuben proved to be a Godsend. The army’s rise from the ashes of Valley Forge owned much to him.
Washington hoped to field 12,000 men in the spring – about the number he had brought to Valley Forge before the decimation brought on by disease, death, and desertions. To accomplish that he was forced to do the unthinkable for that time – enlist black soldiers. Rhode Island raised an all-black battalion of 130 men with the promise that they would be freed from slavery at war’s end for good service. Massachusetts and Connecticut followed. An August census showed 755 black soldiers under arms – about 5% of the army. One officer in a French regiment described the black soldiers as self-confident. Another boasted that they were part of a Rhode Island regiment that “is the most neatly dressed, the best under arms, and the most precise in its maneuvers.”
While Washington’s men huddled at Valley Forge, Benjamin Franklin in Paris managed to pull off the diplomatic coup that would turn the war’s tide – a treaty committing the French to fight with the Americans as allies. In addition, France recognized America as a new nation, not a group of zealots in rebellion against their mother country. Washington got the news in April.
Realizing the difficulty in defending Philadelphia, the British and 3,000 Tories would leave the city in June and the war would wear on for three more years. But with France now an ally it was time for pause and celebration. Washington ordered his army to form on the parade field and the French treaty was read aloud. Thirteen cannons – one for each colony – fired a salute followed by the infantry firing their muskets in sequence. The French were cheered and the French officers in the Continental army were embraced and thanked. Steuben marched the regiments smartly in review, proudly showing off their crack precision to a delighted Washington.
An open air table was set for the 1,500 officers of the army complete with wines, liquors, and various meats. Afterward, Washington played cricket with the younger officers. At 5 p.m. Washington gathered his aides and they mounted their horses to return to headquarters. Those that remained hailed them, clapping their hands and cheering “Long live George Washington!” as they twirled a thousand hats in the air. Washington and his aides kept stopping, looking back, and crying “Huzzah!” in return.
It was a day of thanksgiving for having survived that long and horrid winter at Valley Forge.
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